Kabuki's Forgotten War: 1931-1945

James R. Brandon

Abstract

According to a myth constructed after Japan's surrender to the Allied Forces in 1945, kabuki was a pure, classical art form with no real place in modern Japanese society. This book calls this view into question and makes a compelling case that, up to the very end of the Pacific War, kabuki was a living theater and, as an institution, an active participant in contemporary events, rising and falling in consonance with Japan's imperial adventures. The book shows that kabuki played an important role in Japan's Fifteen-Year Sacred War. It reveals, for example, that kabuki stars raised funds to buy ... More

According to a myth constructed after Japan's surrender to the Allied Forces in 1945, kabuki was a pure, classical art form with no real place in modern Japanese society. This book calls this view into question and makes a compelling case that, up to the very end of the Pacific War, kabuki was a living theater and, as an institution, an active participant in contemporary events, rising and falling in consonance with Japan's imperial adventures. The book shows that kabuki played an important role in Japan's Fifteen-Year Sacred War. It reveals, for example, that kabuki stars raised funds to buy fighter and bomber aircraft for the imperial forces and that producers arranged large-scale tours for kabuki troupes to entertain soldiers stationed in Manchuria, China, and Korea. Kabuki playwrights contributed no less than 160 new plays that dramatized frontline battles or rewrote history to propagate imperial ideology. Abridged by censors, molded by the Bureau of Information, and partially incorporated into the League of Touring Theaters, kabuki reached new audiences as it expanded along with the new Japanese empire. By the end of the war, however, it had fallen from government favor and in 1944–1946 it nearly expired when Japanese government decrees banished leading kabuki companies to minor urban theaters and the countryside. The book includes more than a hundred illustrations, many of which have never been published in an English-language work. It is a complete revision of kabuki's recent history and as such goes beyond correcting a significant misconception.